


To Fight His Corner

by westernredcedar



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Grief, M/M, Parents, Sue POV, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2202561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westernredcedar/pseuds/westernredcedar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When her son is nine years old, Sue Walker thinks for the first time <i>my Kieren is different from the other boys</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Life

**Author's Note:**

> Sue Walker's POV on the many complex events of her son's life (lives).  
> This story has three parts, the first centered on Kieren's life, the second on the Rising, and the third on his return home. Though I tagged Kieren/Simon, it's completely false advertising until part three comes along. *ducksrottentomatoes* (thrown by Simon)  
> This fic was inspired by a comment from Ely left on another of my stories, wanting more of 'the fam'. Thank you!  
> Someday I'll get my crap together and use a beta again, and I apologize for the lack of Brit-pick.

When her son is nine years old, Sue Walker thinks for the first time _my Kieren is different from the other boys_. It's during a birthday party at William's house, a boy from school. Sue is pretending to enjoy chatting with the other mothers, sipping a glass of wine, while their sons kick around a football on the grass. But really she's watching Kieren, who has removed himself from the group, is aimlessly swinging a branch he's picked up from the ground, and is pacing around a lilac bush, his mouth moving gently as if he's quietly talking to himself. 

No one notices him or seems to care that he's wandering alone. Sue is moments away from going to him, his loneliness an acute pain in her chest, to ask if wants to leave. Then Rick, Janet Macy's son, ( _such a cheerful, out-going boy_ , Sue thinks), pulls out of the game and joins him, his approach casual and easy, and Kieren lights up, his face all smiles and animation as they circle the bush together, round and round, and say whatever it is nine and ten-year-old boys say to each other when they are alone. 

Sue's reverie is broken by Janet, who has sidled closer and is watching the boys as well, sipping her wine. "We should get them together more, Sue. Kieren is welcome to come by after school."

Sue looks over at Janet, a reserved, quiet woman ( _rather hard to get to know_ , Sue remembers thinking, and that proves true), then looks back at their two sons, giggling together over something Rick's just said. "They do seem to get on, don't they?" _Maybe not so different from the other boys, after all,_ Sue thinks, and the pain in her heart eases, just a little.

*

When Kieren is thirteen, he asks for a paint set for his birthday, so Sue buys one, an elaborate box of acrylic colors and brushes, three small canvases, and a sketchbook. She nudges Steve to return the goalkeeper's gloves he's bought (Kieren has asked to quit football, hasn't told his dad yet). Steve takes them back to the shop and comes home with a small stereo for Kieren's room that he wraps up instead. It's been a long, trying year with Jem, but Steve does this without comment. 

Sue wonders if her husband might not be noticing more than he lets on.

*

When the children were babies, Sue held out hope that they would inherit only the good stuff: be thoughtful, loving, kind, with Steve's sense of humor and his steadfast loyalty. But it doesn't really work like that, she knows. They get the other parts in there as well: Steve's endless worrying, her own dibillitating sadness, their shared inability to express themselves until too late. 

Kieren comes home from the Macys one day, fourteen, lanky and awkward, growing so much this year (she can't keep him in trousers for a week, it seems). He's riled, Sue can see it, he's been crying but trying not to, his jaw is clenched and solid. 

He slams the door, then storms past her in the sitting room, she's puttering about washing up and getting dinner ready. Her hands are full of spoons.

"Kieren?" she says. "What wrong?"

"Nothing, mum. Honestly." He is on his way up the stairs, and then she hears the door to his room slam, faint music start. She wants to go up, to press him to talk to her, tell her what's happened. She wants to, but she doesn't. Sue has never been any good at this bit, and Kieren wouldn't know how to talk with her anyway, obviously wants his privacy (she tells herself, over and over, for the many sleepless nights that follow). 

Kieren doesn't go to the Macys anymore after school. Rick comes by sometimes, they do school work for an hour or two in Kieren's room, but Rick never stays for supper. Kieren doesn't cry again and Sue never asks. 

*

Sue runs into Janet Macy at the Save 'n Shop one Saturday, several months later. She looks tired, and odd (Sue realizes later that it's because she's wearing a thick wool jumper with a high collar, and it's a warm day in August), but she stops her trolley for a chat, and Sue's glad.

"How is Kieren?"

"Becoming quite the artist, actually," Sue says. "Walls filling up with his paintings."

"That so? Well." Janet smiles, her eyes downcast. "I do miss having him round," in an undertone, like a confession.

"Hope he wasn't ever a problem for you," Sue says, close as she can come to asking what has happened to change things, to so upset Kieren.

"Oh not at all," Janet says, and then her voice drops even lower and softer. "I was thinking..." She looks round the aisle like a secret agent, so Sue does as well, unsure. They are alone. "Does your family have anything special on Thursdays?"

Sue's curiosity flares, but she restrains herself and simply shakes her head. "No, average boring school night at home, I'm afraid." 

"Bill's night out, he don't get home 'till after ten."

"Ah?" Sue says.

"If Kieren even wanted to...well, maybe on a Thursday."

"Yeah?" Sue's not entirely sure what to make of this, but she knows her heart is beating hard and fast just looking at Janet. "Shall I have Kieren ask him round for supper next week then?"

Janet's eyes are sad as she smiles and nods and murmurs a faint, "Do that."

*

At home, later, Kieren is studying at the dining table as Sue does the washing up. Steve is upstairs getting Jem to bed. Sue's read an article that says to ask your children the hard questions when you don't have to look each other in the eye. So, now. 

"Kieren," she starts, leaning back to make sure he can hear her, "was there ever any problem between you and Bill Macy?" It's quiet for a long minute after, only the sound of the water running into the sink. 

Finally Kieren replies, not looking up from his work. "Why?"

"Saw Janet today, and just something she said." Sue scrubs the next plate, keeping her voice steady. "And you haven't been over there much anymore, so I was just wondering."

"Yeah, well, he hates me. I suppose that's a problem." Pencil still moving over his problem set. 

"Why would he hate you?"

Kieren snorts, and Sue looks in at him. "Look at me, mum," Kieren says, throwing his arms wide. He's in his favorite black t-shirt, now peppered with holes from being so worn and a ripped jean vest covered with safety pins. He's used her black eyeliner again. "He just does." 

Sue opens her mouth to say _"Sweetheart, I'm sure you have that wrong,"_ but then stops herself, thinks over what she knows of Bill Macy: his loud, bigoted talk at church, Janet's fear (because that's what it was, Sue sees it now), Kieren's angry tears and how Rick always leaves their house with plenty of time to get home before his father. She thinks about why Janet Macy might need to hide herself in a bulky jumper in the middle of summer. A shudder of panic passes through her ( _that bastard; how dare he_ ) before she manages to speak.

"Well, sod Bill Macy then. Janet suggested we have Rick over for supper on Thursday," Sue says, trying to keep the furious shake out of her voice. "What do you say to that."

Kieren puts his pencil down then, looks in at Sue, his eyes huge. "She said that?"

"She did." 

Sue steals glances at Kieren for the next ten minutes as she finishes up in the kitchen, and he never stops smiling once. 

*

Sue knows when Kieren starts sneaking out of the house. He's sixteen. 

She's never been a deep sleeper, and between Jem's on-going struggles with confidence and Kieren's need to dramatically express himself, she finds plenty to keep her awake and fretting at all hours. She hears the squeak of the stairs and looks at the clock. One a.m. Steve is snoring peacefully at her side (which doesn't help her sleep, either, if she's honest).

She pops her head out of the bedroom and whispers, "Kieren?" just as the front door clicks shut. No answer.

"He's gone out, mum. He's done it before." Jem is standing in her doorway at the end of the hall in her nightgown, arms crossed in pre-adolescent indignance. "Took you long enough to notice."

"Do you know where he's gone?" Sue wraps her robe around herself and goes into Kieren's room to look out onto the street. 

Jem sidles down the corridor. "Rick Macy swipes beer from his dad, and he and Kieren go off to the woods to drink it."

"Do they?" She looks both directions down the street, but Kieren is already out of sight.

"I think they might smoke as well. Is he grounded for life?" 

"I don't think so, Jem."

"Figures." Jem pouts, shaking her head. "Perfect boy gets away with everything."

"Jem." But she's stomped back down the hall and into her room, shutting the door behind her.

Sue sits in the quiet of Kieren's room, stares at the new portrait of Rick he's finished and hung on the wall opposite his bed. Now what? Confront Kieren when he returns? Go after him? Pretend she doesn't know? Just go back to sleep? (That makes her laugh at herself, she won't be getting any more sleep tonight.) Safe enough in Roarton, but still. 

In the end, she makes her way back to her bedroom, takes off her robe, and slides in next to Steve, who mutters and groans and turns over, cracking his eyes open.

"Where were you off to?" he asks, voice sleep bleary.

"Kieren's been sneaking out of the house," Sue replies as she tucks in next to Steve and he wraps an arm around her so that she is nestled into the crook of his shoulder. 

"Has he?" Sue can hear Steve's appraising frown, even in the dark. "Well, good on him. Best nights of me life were had on a good sneak out."

"Steve." Sue laughs, bats him with her hand. 

It's quiet for a minute, and Sue closes her eyes. Then Steve says, "You reckon he's got a girlfriend?"

Sue's eyes flutter open and she stares into the darkness. "No."

Steve is quiet, as if he's thinking of saying something, but when he speaks, he just says, "Nah, me neither."

And that's all they ever say about that.

*

It's such a little thing, just a split second of a moment in one ordinary day, but Sue Walker thinks about that moment over and over, for _years_ , about what it means, about how it changes the meaning of everything that comes after. It's just below Kieren's collar at the base of his throat, peeps out when he stretches across the breakfast table for jam, just for a moment. Sue is sure she's the only one to see it; a small, dark oval imprinted on his skin, the kind she used to dab with cover-up after necking with Michael Corley, so her mum wouldn't see.

"Who were you out with last night, Kieren?" she asks quietly, head down to hide her blush.

"Just Rick, mum." Kieren jams two pieces of toast in his mouth and dashes out the door, late for school.

Sue sits and thinks and sips her tea.

*

Rick Macy leaves Roarton on a cool day in October. 

Kieren had received his admittance to art school the week previous, the family had enjoyed a celebratory supper, and Kieren had started to assemble (far too early, but he's eager) what he'll need to live in a dormitory for a year. He and Rick had been out together every night since. (Shirley Wilson mentioned that she had seen the two of them in the village, looked like maybe holding hands even. She sounded so pleased as she shared this, though it makes Sue's stomach twist with worry; not everyone thinks like Shirley). 

Sue is out in the garden, pulling in the tomato cages, when Kieren comes careening through the carport, face ashen, eyes red and swollen, looking around (could it be for her? she can't recall the last time he needed her). When he sees Sue, his face crumples, and she dashes over and he wraps himself into her arms and sobs, full body heaves, her shoulder growing damp with tears, her arms and back strained as she holds up her grown boy as if he were six years old again, and his goldfish has just been found floating. 

She gets him inside once the initial storm passes. Jem has been watching from the window, looks on in mystified wonder at her big brother brought so low. It takes him a long time to get out the few sentences to explain that Rick had not showed up for a planned lunch, so Kieren had gone in search, and Bill had met him at the door and told him Rick had gone to Preston to start basic training and was never coming back.

*

Kieren posts a letter every morning. It's like a ritual: breakfast, clothes, walk to the post box, home, back to bed. He's sleeping long hours, since. Sue wonders what there is to write about every day, marvels at her son, at that deep loyalty that she had dreamed for him before he was even born. 

Sue retrieves the family post every afternoon, in hope, but there is never a letter in return.

(It's years later, after everything has happened and Bill is dead, that Janet Macy sends Sue a strange letter (from her sister's in York, where she's gone to stay). The letter is full of regrets and memories about Kieren. Janet explains how that day, when Rick left, Kieren had begged for an address, and Bill had given him one, but with the numbers wrong; he'd laughed about it for days after. She'd wanted to tell Kieren, Janet wrote, more than anything, but couldn't, wasn't brave enough, and she's never let herself forget it. Sue takes the letter into the bathroom and reads it again and thinks of all those letters posted to nowhere, one every day, cries for ten minutes solid. She puts Janet's note away to show Kieren someday, when it seems right. It hasn't seemed right yet.)

*

They hear about Rick's death in passing. Maggie Burton, days before her stroke, mentions it as they unpack the groceries from the Volvo and she's out watering her pots. _Roadside bomb. Such a shame. A promising lad._ Sue feels her heart in her knees, can't look at Kieren, closes her eyes and pictures the two little boys, long ago, circling the lilac bush, laughing at nothing with each other, in the summer sun.

Kieren doesn't cry, just goes still and silent, and Sue never forgives herself that she didn't guess, right that moment, how deep a cut he would make. 

*


	2. Rising

Sue cannot recall the last time she and Steve had a fight, but they have a tense, bitter argument over the clothes for Kieren's burial. Steve is utterly unreasonable (Sue just wants Kieren to be comfortable, Steve insists on formal and gloomy). After an hour, Sue stops talking, won't even look anymore as Steve lifts up options ("This'd be nice"), pulls items from the cupboard ("Hmm, clean and pressed; could work"). Eventually though, he stops, fists clenched, let's out a loud and surprising shout ("God _dammit_ Sue!"), then grabs a stack of shirts from Kieren's chest of drawers and flings them across the bed (at her?). He storms down the stairs and slams out the door. 

The shirts smell of Kieren. Sue lies down on the scattered pile, closes her eyes, breathes.

Later, Steve is home, he's been walking. They share a silent supper. Jem disappears upstairs while Sue washes up, then reappears with a pile of clothes, drops it all on the sofa. "There. Sorted." Glares, clomps away up the stairs (Later, Sue realizes she's wearing a pair of Kieren's boots; she wears them for years).

Denim jacket, jeans, worn plaid shirt with grey hood. 

It's what Kieren was wearing Saturday last, day before he disappeared. Last time they saw him. 

"Oh. Oh no," Sue breathes, just before shuddering sobs rip out of her, and luckily Steve is there. She can't grab hold of him tight enough. 

*

Kieren's been gone twenty days when the dead rise from their graves.

There hasn't been time, for anything. Sue doesn't even believe he's dead most days, time passes dreamlike, she feels like she's waiting, waiting for it all to be different. Two times she's made Kieren breakfast before remembering. Another day she shouts his name when she needs the wooden bowl that's up too high for her to reach. He doesn't come.

It's Christmastime. Sue cannot even remove the box of decorations from the loft. Jem is stormy and cruel ("Not even a stocking? So you've nothing left for me?") and Sue doesn't even feel it, Jem's anger just passes through her like she's a ghost. 

Steve walks, hours at a time rambles, hasn't spoken more than a few observations about the weather since the funeral. 

The first night, (the night they all later refer to as _The Rising_ ), it's just a roulette wheel, who lives and who dies. In the morning, there is no sign that anything unusual has happened for several hours. They go about their mourning: breakfast, silence, Jem storming upstairs to her room and slamming the door. The first siren is round ten. Unusual, enough for Sue to note it, wonder where Geoff is off to so quickly. Crime is rare in Roarton; the constable speeding through the village unheard of. 

A few minutes later, _three_ strange police cars speed past, sirens blaring. Sue has never seen three police cars in Roarton before, can't even imagine where they've come from. She pulls on a cardigan, walks to the pavement to see what direction they are heading, but they are already gone. Ken Burton is at his window, several other neighbors have opened their doors or have stepped out, curious. This is why there are so many witnesses to what happens next.

Down the street, a lurching figure appears. It's obvious to Sue right off the top that something is not right: a twist to the head, stiff legs, filthy, dressed oddly, as if attending a formal dance. She's dragging something, and Sue is too far away, but then someone screams ("Oh god! Geoff!") and Sue looks closer and realizes the lurching woman is dragging their constable by the leg, and that he's very, very dead.

The fog lifts off of Sue in that moment, no more waiting, the adrenaline shot of _danger_ sending her back into the house at a run, to the horrified shouts of her neighbors. That's how it begins.

*

They watch it unfold on television. 

The initial reports are garbled, confused. No one in London understands what's happened any more than anyone in Roarton. It's about twenty-four hours after the first mangled bodies are found that someone notices something odd about a graveyard, and for the first time a reporter uses the word: _zombie_. Sue would laugh and change the channel if she hadn't seen what had happened to Geoff Shipley. 

Sue, Steve, and Jem all watch together, long into the night, locked tight into the house. It's Jem who finally says what they are all thinking, looking at the shots of yawning graves, open coffins. She whispers it, and it sends shivers up Sue's spine.

"Kieren," she says. 

*

They all imagine the army will be arriving any day now. Or that this will all be proved a hoax. Sue hasn't seen any other... _creatures_ like the one who killed Geoff, but they are all over the television news reports and the internet. It's like watching a film. 

No one goes out. Sue, Steve, and Jem hover around each other, colliding and separating like pinballs into their own regions of the house, trying to balance this unreal fear with the growing reality that Kieren's truly gone. It's all so surreal that they can't even discuss it. Steve stops talking at all, and Jem communicates by slamming doors and blasting music (that horrible noise Kieren gave her, most days). Sue cooks, cooks meal after meal, and no one really eats much. 

After a week, the members of the Roarton shooting club (Tom and Donna Wilshell, Carl Peele, Bill Macy) start a community safety patrol, armed, walking from house to house to check in and see if anyone needs any food or help or supplies. Sue hasn't seen Bill since Kieren...left, not since the news about Rick. He appears at their door and asks if they need any food or supplies, doesn't even meet her eyes, doesn't offer so much as a _how are ye?_ They may as well be strangers.

"We'll be out here, protectin' ye," Bill says as he turns away, and Sue remembers Janet's bulky sweaters, Rick's fear, and imagines punching Bill in the eye, hard (she could too, her brother taught her how), even as she hands Donna her shopping list.

* 

The days drag on, no help comes. Weeks pass. Carl is found dead one day, after he doesn't return from his patrol. Wilshells go missing, no one ever finds them. There is an attack at the Landers house, whole family gone, right in the middle of the day. News passes from house to house, through cracked windows and gossip. Sue takes it in like fiction. Like that bizarre story that her son is dead.

One day, a large group of men, maybe fifteen strong, come knocking at doors. Sue watches from the window as they make their way down the street. Bill Macy. Recognizes a couple of older boys from Kieren's school days. Guns everywhere.

"No one's comin' to help us, we'll god damn help ourselves," Bill says, when Steve answers the door. "Startin' our own bloody army. Interested parties can step out now, or meet at the Legion, four o'clock."

Sue is just behind Steve, ready to slam the door with a "No, thank you," when she hears a voice holler out behind her. 

"Coming! Wait! I'm in!" Jem (fourteen year old Jem, who still sometimes needs Steve to read her to sleep; Sue's heart stops), pushing past and barreling out the door towards Bill Macy, clomping along in Kieren's boots and one of his old army surplus coats. 

There's some snickering in the group, and Bill looks her up and down and says, "You sure of that, young lady?"

"Fuckin' right, I'm sure. Ready to blow the heads off some bastard zombies, that's what I am," Jem says. 

Bill gives the crowd a look, and the snickers quiet abruptly. "You got passion, which is a damn sight more than what most of these shitheads have to offer. You're in." Bill Macy throws his arm around Jem's shoulder ( _hasn't let me touch her in a year_ , Sue thinks). He leads her to the front of the mob and away, and both of her children are gone, stolen by this man. 

Sue is too tired to even be angry.

*

It's confusing, most days, what she's even feeling. Is she mourning Kieren? Missing Jem (who almost lives at the Legion now)? Struggling to make sense of what's happening to Steve? Worrying over her own safety, grieving her neighbors and friends who are gone? It's too much, too much for one person to feel. Sue cooks, and cleans, and keeps the house tidy, and let's it all wash over her like the tidal wave that it is. 

One day, Jem comes home in a rage, dressed like a soldier, her feet stomping her aggression into the floorboards. 

"Jem, sweetheart, what is it?" Sue is in the sitting room with a book. She hasn't seen Jem in three days. 

Jem stops and looks round at Sue, sounds decades older than fifteen when she says, "Just...don't, Mum. Don't." Stomps up the stairs.

Jem's friend Lisa comes by later.

"Jem? Nah. She's alright," Lisa says when Sue asks. "Just a bit shaken up. Her patrol went up to the cemetery for the first time, rotters left and right up there. Their home base, I suppose. Guess it was a sight."

Sue remembers the last time she was at the cemetery, the gaping hole in the earth, the finality of soil, and wonders what Jem has seen.

*

There's another attack on a house, the Palmers, down the way. They manage to capture the two who snuck in, and no one is seriously hurt, but still. Steve won't (can't?) react, he doesn't even respond when she tells him about it, so Sue goes out to the garden shed herself for tools to nail all the windows shut.

Sue's sorting through the bins, filling her pockets, when she hears a knocking sound, and then a low groan, and her heart crawls into her mouth. She peers out the door of the shed and there it is. One of them, across the garden. It's a girl (maybe even the same one that had dragged Geoff down the pavement so long ago now). She's vacant and dirty and terrifying, dark, rotted skin and putrid smell, and all Sue can think to do is grab the closest weapon she can get her hands on, Steve's old chainsaw, dusty and covered in cobwebs.

 _They hunt together_ Jem had reported, during her last stop home. Sue pulls the starter, and there's nothing, not even a shudder in the motor, not even the slightest hope of making the chain spin, and Sue thinks how another one of those things is probably out there, waiting for her, working with its partner to trap her, kill her. She can't get a breath, can't get her hands to work properly to hold onto the chainsaw, to keep it from falling. God, she's amazed to discover that she's not at all ready to die.

Sue counts down from three, slams the door open and yells, loud as she can, brandishes the chainsaw like it's working, and the girl stops for a moment, long enough for Sue to run the ten feet to the door, slam it and lock it and barricade it behind her. (She thinks she hears a shuffling from the carport as well, but doesn't turn to see, just runs.)

Steve is there, catches her as she careens full speed into him, still screaming, still holding the useless chainsaw. He's got a two by four, peppered with huge nails (when did he make that?), held at the ready like a bat, deadly. As she falls into him and there's no undead creatures pounding down the door at her heels ( _where did they go?_ is a question for later), he lets his weapon fall and hugs Sue to him, so hard she can hardly breathe.

"Oh god, Sue, I'm so sorry, so sorry," he whispers into her hair, over and over, more words than he's said for months. He doesn't let her go for a long, long time. 

Steve starts talking again, after that. They concoct a survival plan, in case of attack, Steve draws diagrams, they practice it like a drill. The two of them eat supper every night, and talk about the news, like old times. Kieren is never mentioned.

Sue requisitions a canister of gasoline from the HVF, and sleeps with the chainsaw at her bedside for the next two years. 

*

(Bill Macy locks the two captured zombies in the exercise yard and a crowd of people stream down the block to watch him execute them both, point blank shots to the head, Jem tells her later. Sue hears the cheers from her window, loud even from several streets away, and thinks about Kieren.)

*

There's the one night they never talk about; never will, Sue imagines. 

A loud, inhuman howling from the garden starts one late afternoon. The Walkers try their best to ignore it (could be a ploy to get them outside, could be a trap), but eventually Sue peers out from between the curtains, and sees one of the things, looks like an older one ( _the elderly_ , Sue realizes after Jem shows her a few pictures, these things are gray-haired and stooped more often than not, withered long before death). He's gripping his leg, which is mangled and stuck in a bear-trap, must be a new defense set up by the HVF, he's crawled this far and collapsed. The thing can't walk, is just howling and groaning. Sue feels a brief moment of sympathy, peeps out at it throughout the afternoon. It doesn't move much.

Steve looks out several times after supper. They try to watch television. The mournful howling goes on. Steve is tense and preoccupied. 

"This can't go on," he mutters, standing suddenly and grabbing his coat. "Others will come."

"Steve," she says, but he doesn't turn back.

Steve grabs his board of nails and Sue hears the door slam, then the howling abruptly cease. Steve comes back in fifteen minutes later, dirty and silent, and goes straight into the shower without giving her even a glance. When Sue dares look out the window, there is no sign that the creature was ever there. 

*

Somehow, years pass. 

The first they hear of this new medication is from Shirley Wilson, shouting joyfully down the street from her open window to anyone willing to listen to her. The news reports start shortly after, praising the miracle drug, calling it the end of the war, the cure, the salvation of the human race. Sue tries not to hope.

HVF patrols slow; new, military types from out of the area are seen patrolling in the woods instead. Bill and Vicar Oddie shout to the village on the evil of this new policy of "captures" rather than the heroic kills they've been tallying on the wall of the Legion for years. 

One night, Jem bursts into the house, hysterical, still in uniform and still holding her gun (she doesn't put it down all night). She lets Sue sit with her, even leans up against her and lets Sue brush her hand through her hair (grown so long now, she's so grown up, her little girl). What Sue can get out of her through her sobs is that Lisa is dead (Sue's heart plummets, oh god, not again, what a waste, and thank _god_ it wasn't her), and four strangers had arrived to capture the two rotters who'd done her in.

(Jem and Lisa had been inseperable for the last few years, but Sue notices Jem cries the hardest, not when talking about Lisa's death, but when describing the creatures being carted out of the Stop 'n Shop. It's twenty years before Jem tells her why.)

Jem moves back in after that, full time, no more nights camped out on watch at the Legion. Sue works very hard not to tell her how happy she is to have her home, almost like a family again.

*

The phone call comes mid-morning, two months after Lisa Lancaster disappears. Sue's just finishing her tea.

A clinical, bureaucratic voice. "Is this Sue Walker, mother of Kieren Walker, deceased?"

Unexpected. Sue sits. "Yes?" 

"Ms. Walker, I'm pleased to inform you that your son is eager to see you again." 

The world goes still. The voice keeps talking, even after the phone receiver hits the floor.

*


	3. Afterlife

Losing Kieren had taken a long time, years, and getting him back is no quicker. His body leaves and returns abruptly, on two random days of Sue's life, but truly saying goodbye and truly welcoming him home are both much more tedious and lengthy processes. 

No one gives you a roadmap for the reverse of grief, Sue thinks. 

Sue tries to remember how she felt a year and a half after Kieren was gone, now that he's a year and a half back. For some reason this stretch of time feels significant to her, makes her want to bake a cake and gather the family and celebrate. She's no longer surprised when he walks into the room, doesn't startle or tear up anymore. His presence is normalized again, just as it had been for eighteen years, like he's never been away. 

In some odd ways, it's easier than before. Kieren sticks close to home now, no more running round the woods with Rick or sneaking off in studs and eyeliner and coming home smelling of ashtrays. She worries less. He's holding down a job, helps with chores, interests Jem enough to keep her home a few nights a week.

Sue's a smart woman; she knows there is a whole lifetime of things they should be saying to one another, air that needs clearing, stories that need telling (the family therapist had lasted three sessions, and only Steve seems interested in continuing to express himself), but she's exhausted, and her Kieren is home, and her family is safe. It's enough.

*

Sue and Steve still watch the news together every night, while Kieren is at work and Jem is at her studies. The Blue Oblivion attacks start in October. 

The attacks are all in London at first, so they may as well be on the moon or in a film. It has nothing to do with Roarton, but they sit, fixed to the television, night after night, ULA graffiti and dead bodies, living in vicarious horror. It starts to spread to the suburbs all around the south, but still they seem far away, happening to someone else. 

There is an attack on a lorry in Liverpool. Steve and Sue don't talk about it at all, but it feels different suddenly, a bit close for comfort. Sue oils and refuels her chainsaw, without telling Steve.

When they hear about Ken Burton, it's too much. They stop watching the news entirely. Sue still catches Steve listening to the radio, and she often tunes in as she cooks, but they don't discuss the change, and Sue doesn't bring it up to Kieren. It's nothing to do with him, after all.

*

Janet Macy is leaving Roarton, selling the house and moving in with her sister. Sue runs into her in the Save 'n Shop one afternoon, and Janet asks her over for lunch before she goes, something she has never done before in their twenty-odd year acquaintance.

Sue's hardly seen Janet since the funeral. She looks thin, but somehow more open, less strained, less...congested. Maybe it's that she smiles so much as she serves the tray of sandwiches, that she sits down rather than puttering back and forth to the kitchen, that she asks after Steve and truly seems interested in Sue's reply. She's been living alone in the house for over a year, and it's near empty, everything in boxes ready to go to storage. No sign of Bill, only one photo of Rick framed and propped on the side table near the sofa. Sue tries not to look at it too often. They cover the safe topics: Janet's plans, Sue's garden, village gossip (Miles Stander's affair (poor Alina), council elections, hiring the new constable, opening of the new chemist).

"How's Kieren?" Janet asks at last, over tea, when the easy subjects run out. 

Sue thinks before speaking, trying to imagine what Janet might want to hear. "He's getting along. Some hard days but he manages. Working at the Legion, you know."

"Does he?" Janet sips her tea. 

"Yeah. Bit of a homebody, but I don't mind. Sometimes it's all so normal, I almost forget." Sue regrets it as soon as it's out of her mouth, but Janet doesn't even flinch. 

"Just the same, weren't they? When they come back. That was the most remarkable thing." Janet's gaze drifts over to Rick's photo, and Sue's follows. "Just. It was all the same as before." 

They sit quietly for a moment before Sue can speak. "Janet, I can't imagine how you have been coping with your loss..." 

Sue means to say more, but Janet interrupts, rising from the table. "Don't try to imagine," she says, her voice quiet and firm as she starts to collect the dishes. "Honestly, most days I'm just grateful they're gone."

Sue is frozen in the midst of raising her tea to her lips, and doesn't set the cup down until Janet trots back in to retrieve the milk and sugar, smiling and efficient, as if they'd still been discussing dahlias. Sue can't say anything more, so she doesn't, just stands to help clear the table.

Janet leaves Roarton three days later, and Sue never sees her again. 

*

In the weeks after the lunch with Janet, Sue thinks often of the support group with Shirley, the one time Janet came. How she'd confessed her fear of Rick, her fear of everything that had happened. 

Sue thinks about Victus, about their sweeping victories, about this new Give Back Scheme (that's keeping Kieren home for months longer; selfishly, she's so grateful, wasn't ready to lose him again), and about the ULA attacks. 

Sue's been coping for so long, she's lost track; is she afraid? Should she be?

*

One of the ways it is different with Kieren now is that he doesn't see friends anymore. He'd had only a few, as a child, but they were deep and time-consuming friendships (Rick, of course, but also hours and hours gaming with Philip and Ryan, painting with Elyse; only Philip's left). More days with Sue this time round, with his sister, for family night and movie night and evenings drawing in his room. 

So this girl, this Amy person, gives Sue pause. Kieren needs friends, she's sure of that, but she's not prepared for the effect of her pale skin and white eyes, for her difference to be so bold and unapologetic. Kieren has always been drawn to difference, Sue knows, it's what kept her sleepless for the long years of his adolescence, but she'd thought he was done with all that now.

Amy is charming though, and she makes Kieren smile, and that's all she can really hope for. Sue's always prided herself on being open-minded, able to get along with all sorts, so she makes an effort, smiles back, and silences the nagging inner voice that tries to make her judge and worry.

Amy brings a whole new world to Roarton with her, it seems. Kieren quits his job, has places to go again, late nights out, days spent at Dot Dyer's bungalow, a new crowd. 

Steve asks, one night as they read in bed, just as Sue recalls he asked so many years before. "You don't suppose. Kieren and that Amy...?"

Sue looks up from her book. "I don't think so, love."

Steve looks back down at his magazine. "Nah. Just as well," he says, and Sue isn't sure what he means by that, so she doesn't ask.

*

Sue had years to get accustomed to Rick Macy in Kieren's life, in all the ways he was important. She watched them grow up together, watched the way they played together, complimented each other, stood up for each other. She looked the other way when she needed to, but it was not difficult. It was Rick, who she knew like a member of her own family, who she helped fall asleep on sleepovers and held close waiting for his mum when he'd broken his wrist in football. 

Kieren brings one of his new crowd round for Sunday lunch ( _Simon_ , if she heard correctly) and Sue knows right away that Kieren has _brought him home_ , that he's chosen this person to introduce to them as more than a new friend. Even before she notes that Simon is all nervous energy and awkward conversation, something in the way Kieren is dressed, in the formal way he introduces him gives it away. 

Sue hates the tight feeling in her chest, the way her breathing shallows as she realizes. This is no childhood crush, no teenagers innocently mucking about in the woods. This is a _man_ , a tall, virile, intimidating _man_ , who spends most of their short conversation looking at Kieren with a gaze that requires Sue to avert her eyes. 

She's just swallowing the lump in her throat when Jem returns home with Gary Kendal, and suddenly both of her children (her little babes) have brought grown men to the table, and Sue sits and marvels. _My children must be grown ups, too._

Then the conversation goes so very wrong.

*

Sue doesn't cry until long after the dishes are cleaned and put away and Jem and Gary have gone off together for the evening. She's held back the tide, running through her evening routine, until it hits her in the middle of the upstairs corridor ( _"I killed people, too"_ ).

She hadn't even realized she'd believed something until it's proved opposite. Hadn't given Kieren's actions during the Rising a conscious moment of thought until now, beyond simply knowing, in her bones, that her son would never, ever hurt another person. She can't walk any further, just bursts into tears, standing there, mid-stride. Steve rushes up from downstairs and stares for a moment before he wraps her up in his arms. 

"I didn't know," is all she can say, in the breaths between sobs. 

"I didn't either," Steve replies into her hair. 

_That Simon,_ she thinks, _and that friendly Amy. They're killers, too._ She can feel herself shaking, and Steve's long arms around her.

*

Suddenly, the horror film of Undead Liberation is no distant fiction on the telly. It's happening in Sue's sitting room. Attack at the high school, Freddie Preston, attack at the GPs. Kieren refusing to wear his cover-up, talking like a petulant teenager, bringing murderers over for Sunday lunch. It's all happening too fast.

Sue cannot pretend anymore. She's terrified. She must have been terrified for years, she thinks, her fear masquerading as exhaustion and grief. She knows now. She wishes Janet were still in town so she could tell her she understands at last about being afraid of your own kin, your own child. The lifeless body of Geoff Shipley being dragged past her house, that morning long ago, and it could have been Kieren, doing the dragging. Was, in a way. 

Steve is the one who locks the door and tells Kieren they're letting him be sent away, but it's Sue who first suggests it, late at night when neither of them can sleep ("Perhaps he just needs some time," she says, when what she really means is, "I can't do this. I need time away from him.") 

It all feels wrong, every step of the way, but they have no rule book for this, no other ideas. Kieren's eyes, her betrayal, Sue can't stop feeling it.

At the fete, Shirley Wilson, thoughtful Shirley, looks at Sue and sees right through to her breaking heart. Says, "Good he has you to fight his corner," and the feeling ( _wrong wrong wrong_ ) echoes in her chest. 

When she goes to find her boy, she's almost too late. But only almost.

*

When her son is twenty-three years old, Sue Walker thinks _my Kieren is not like the other boys._ It's during the memorial celebration for poor Amy Dyer, in their own dining room. Sue is worn through but whole again, heart-healed. The icy panic and fear of the last days has been replaced with the warm calm of forgiveness, of being reminded (by Shirley, by Philip, even by the crazed actions of Maxine Martin) that there are no monsters to fear, not really, no matter who tries to convince you there are. That they are only people trying to find their way in the world the best they know how. She's meant to be chatting with her guests. But really she's watching Kieren, pale-faced Kieren, who has removed himself from the group and is aimlessly picking at his cuffs.

She's moments away from going to him, his sorrow an ache in her chest, when she sees Simon across the room, and Kieren does as well, crossing right to him. Simon (hesitant, grown-up Simon), who stepped in front of a bullet for Kieren; she's heard Steve tell the story twenty times now. Sue thinks _I shouldn't be watching them_ , but she does, watches the openness in Kieren's gaze, the amazement in Simon's eyes as they say whatever two people say to one another when they are falling in love. 

"Want to give him our thanks?" Steve says, coming up behind Sue and looking towards Simon, and Sue nods. 

_My Kieren is not like the other boys. But that's because no one is ever like anyone else, and thank god for that_ , Sue thinks, and for a brief moment, looking at Kieren with Simon, the past few years make perfect sense. 

Sue smiles, and she and Steve walk towards their son together, hand in hand.

*


End file.
